Out of the Blue, Uninvited
by VampirePam
Summary: Boyd/Raylan. AU of Boyd and Raylan's reunion in 101: "Fire in the Hole", as if the two have a romantic history. A lot may have changed in fifteen years, but some things clearly haven't.  Fourth in my "Someone LIke You" series, but can be read on its own.


Boyd had learned of Raylan's return to Harlan County long before the Marshall stepped out of his battered blue Chevy, which looked suspiciously like the one he was driving when he had torn out of this very same driveway all those years ago. Boyd would not be a bit surprised if he kept buying the same make and model each time his car finally gave out; Raylan Givens was not a man who coped well with change.

Though his boys had told him of the arrival of his - well, whatever the hell he and Raylan were to each other - it was still jarring to see him in the flesh after so many years. Boyd would be damned if he wasn't even more handsome than he remembered; Raylan's height seemed to sit more readily on his now well-muscled form, and he had even grown into his hat. His features, though always handsome, had become more chiseled and defined with age, and the dusting of gray at his temples only served to give him an air of authority.

Raylan flashed him a cocky grin, and Boyd was dismayed to discover that it sent a jolt straight to his gut - or lower, if he was being honest. But he wasn't a teenager anymore, he quickly reminded himself, and all these resurfacing feelings of desire and hurt were just twinges caused by the probing of an old wound. A lot had changed over the past fifteen years - he was no longer a scared kid, unsure of his place in the world, but a man who'd been to hell and back a number of times and had the scars to prove it. Just to survive, he had done many things of he didn't care to think of in the light of day, had dealt with drug dealers, thieves, murderers, and miscreants of every kind and always managed to come out ahead. One Marshall with a killer smile and a complicated past was a obstacle he was more than capable of overcoming.

Mentally preparing himself up for battle, Boyd returned Raylan's grin and swaggered down to meet him, careful to convey in his stance and manner that Raylan was engaging him on his territory.

"Why, Raylan Givens!" he remarked, opening his hands in a gesture of welcome, "I heard you were in town. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"

"It's been a long time, Boyd," Raylan returned carefully, eyeing him up and down. "You're looking well. A life of crime obviously agrees with you."

"Life of crime?" Boyd asked in mock hurt and surprise, making it clear he would not be baited that easily. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean. I am a private citizen with no criminal record apart from a few misunderstandings on the subject of parking."

"You have a mighty selective memory, Boyd," Raylan returned. "You don't recall those five or six indictments for methamphetamine production and distribution that were mysteriously dismissed after your daddy had a word with select courthouse employees? Or how about your narrowly-obtained acquittal on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon? I suppose those were misunderstandings as well."

"Of course," Boyd returned breezily. "Forgive me, Raylan, those had slipped my mind, that's how inconsequential they were to me."

"So this is how we're going to play it, Boyd?" Raylan asked, his voice hardening, "All 'aw, shucks' ignorance and transparent excuses?"

Their exchange was interrupted by the sound of tires on gravel. Boyd and Raylan both turned to find Marshall Tim Gutterson pulling into the driveway. He got out of his car and, prompted by their confused looks, explained somewhat sheepishly , "Art thought you might need some back-up on this one. He didn't tell me why."

Raylan's face darkened as he pondered this, but he recovered quickly. "Marshall Tim Gutterson, Boyd Crowder. I was just getting around to asking Boyd if he could dig in his apparently defective memory to recover any knowledge of firing a bazooka into a church a few days back."

"Now why would I do such a thing? As a man of God, I have no quarrel with churches," Boyd replied, still feigning distress.

"Oh, I don't know," Raylan answered, "maybe because I hear you've been preaching white supremacy these days to anyone who'll listen."

"Ain't no law against having opinions, Raylan," Boyd countered. "And that particular opinion isn't hard to come by in Harlan County, even these days."

"Or maybe it was because the church was dealing dope," Raylan continued, moving closer, "and some other low-life decided that with your background with explosives and supposedly racist proclivities, you would be just the man for the job of wiping out his competition."

"Now that would be mighty hard to prove, wouldn't you think so, Marshall Gutterson?" Boyd asked, turning to Tim.

Tim stared back at him stoically, replying only, "Now that doesn't sound like a denial to me, Mr. Crowder."

"Oh, well now, I'm sorry, I didn't feel that an official denial was necessary for such absurd charges," Boyd said, still smiling, "Of course I wish to state, for the record, that I would never dream of blowing up a house of God with a bazooka or any other instrument of violence, even if said house of God was defaming the name of our Lord by spreading illegal drugs through our community."

"That's mighty comforting to hear," replied Raylan, "but you'll forgive me if I don't dismiss a man with your past from my suspect list quite so easily."

"My past?" Boyd returned, his smile turning suddenly dangerous, "Why Raylan, I didn't think you were the type to judge a man solely by his past behavior. After all, who among us doesn't have a few youthful mistakes on his conscience? My, I certainly could tell Marshall Gutterson some stories about yours." He stared directly at Raylan as he finished his final statement, in case his threat was unclear.

"Tim, why don't you head on back to the station?" Raylan said, keeping his voice level, "I'm sure you don't want to hear the two of us gab about old times. I can handle the interview from here on out."

"Are you sure?" Tim asked doubtfully. "Art seemed awfully insistent on me coming to give you a hand."

"Now there is no cause for concern, Marshall," Boyd said amicably, sidling up to Raylan and draping his arm over his shoulder as he addressed Tim. "Raylan and I are old, dear friends, and I'm sure your boss just wanted to make sure he stayed on task. Rest assured that I will insist on discussing fully this unfortunate church bombing before we start any reminiscing."

After looking once again to Raylan, who gave him a small nod, Tim shrugged, returned to his car and, with a last, slightly puzzled glance at Raylan and Boyd, peeled out of the driveway down the road toward the station.

As Raylan turned back toward him, temper flashing in eyes, Boyd said pleasantly, "Now, where are my manners? Raylan, why don't you come on in for a glass of lemonade, or perhaps something a little bit stronger if you can indulge when you're on duty?"

Raylan said nothing, but followed him into the house, eyes still flashing. As soon as they crossed the threshold, Boyd found himself slammed, face first, into an oak cabinet, with Raylan's forearm pressing into his back hard enough to bruise.

Smashing the heel of his boot onto Raylan's toes, Boyd surprised him just enough to loosen his grip and allow Boyd to turn around and face him, although still trapped against the cabinet by Raylan's body. Though his breathing was hampered by Raylan's arm, which was now digging into his diaphragm, Boyd nevertheless managed a hollow laugh and said, "Well, this seems familiar. You never were much of a one for foreplay."

Raylan slammed him even harder against the cabinet, shouting, "Goddamn it, Boyd! You really think this is the time to be cute? This is my life! I am not in a place in my career where I can afford the kind of doubts your glib remarks could bring up. The marshall's service is not an organization that will be sponsoring a float in a pride parade anytime soon."

"Now isn't this ironic?" Boyd asked, his smile thin and razor-sharp, "You were so desperate to get out of this cage that it turns out you went and flew right into another one."

Raylan switched his grip to the front of Boyd's shirt, lifting him up so they were nearly eye to eye. "Quit acting like you know me, Boyd. Whatever we happened to be for a few months when we were both young and stupid has next to nothing to do with who I am now."

Now it was Boyd's turn to get angry, and he pushed Raylan back with surprising vigor, yelling, "No, Raylan, you quit acting like I'm just another scumbag you have to interview on your daily rounds saving the good people of Harlan from bad, bad men like me. You don't get to brush off what we had as nothing - it was substantial enough for you to ask me to run off and build a life with you. You can push down those parts of yourself that you would rather forget all you want, but you can't change the simple fact that we happened - we had something real. If you stopped lying to yourself for a minute, you'd see that."

They stood there in silence for a few long moments, not breaking eye contact for a second, each trying unsuccessfully to recover his breath and composure. The air crackled and burned in the small space between them, and just when Boyd was going to shove Raylan away and demand that he leave, Raylan, also apparently coming to a decision, crashed his lips down on Boyd's, tangling his hands in his hair. Boyd's first thought was to resist and shove him away anyway, but he quickly found himself responding instinctively to Raylan, like all the years and pain in between never happened and they were both still nineteen and unable to keep their hands off one another.

He slipped his arms around Raylan's torso and then under his shirt, scraping his fingers along his back like he used to do so often that Raylan couldn't play Shirts and Skins without eliciting uncomfortable questions. Raylan growled in response and moved his hands down to Boyd's back, then his ass, lifting him up and back so Boyd was half suspended between Raylan and the cabinet. Boyd, never breaking the kiss, moved one of his hands around to Raylan's chest, still keeping it beneath his shirt, which he tugged out of his waistband. When Boyd reached into Raylan's jeans, however, Raylan seemed to snap out of his hormone-fueled haze and propelled himself back with such violence that Boyd had to grab onto the cabinet to keep from falling on his ass onto the floor.

"Fuck!" Raylan yelled, half at Boyd and half at himself, "Fuck!" He then lapsed into silence and began pacing back and forth, his hand running agitatedly through his hair. Once he'd recovered from the shock, Boyd had just started wondering if he should say something when Raylan spoke again.

"You blew up a church with a grenade launcher!" He shouted, looking at Boyd as if this explained everything.

"First of all, you have no proof of that," Boyd replied, stalling as he tried to follow Raylan's logic. "Second, what the hell does that have to do with you coming in here, slamming me against a cabinet, kissing me like you wanted to extract my tonsils, then nearly dropping me on my ass when I took things to the next logical step?"

"Shit, Boyd!" Raylan returned, equally exasperated. "I didn't come here for any of that, least of all with you! I read your file. Over the past fifteen years, you've robbed banks, sold guns, helped your Daddy build the biggest meth empire this side of the Ohio, and blown up anyone who's gotten in your way. Whatever common ground we had in the past has been buried far too deep; we don't make any fucking sense anymore!"

"You really think we're that different, Raylan?" Boyd asked incredulously. "I read all about that Tommy Bucks. shooting in the newspaper. You didn't have to shoot him; there were other ways of dealing with the situation. But he tried your patience and tested your honor, so the second he fulfilled your definition of "justified," he had to die. Do you really think that after so much death, you can just wash your hands clean just by slapping a convenient label on it for your Internal Affairs department? We're two halves of the same coin, you and I. Different in our loyalties, perhaps, but damn near identical once you strip us down to the cores - Harlan men, bred on coal dust and bar fights, barely contained violence just waiting for an excuse to break free. So you do not get to waltz in here after fifteen years, flash your badge and talk down to me like I'm the sinner and you're the man without blame casting the first stone."

"No, Boyd, I get to talk to you like you're a son-of-a-bitch who blew up a church and has killed God knows how many innocent people!" Raylan yelled back at him, "And what's this on your arm, huh?" He lifted up Boyd's shirt sleeve before he could resist, uncovering the swastika tattooed on his left bicep. "Hardly the mark of a man who should be talking to me about lying to myself. I may not know much about you anymore, Boyd, but I know you're not a racist. You're spreading hate to make money, not caring who you hurt in pursuit of it. Honestly, I'm not sure if you can ever wash enough blood off your hands to come back from all that, Boyd, but I know you can't come back to me."

"All right, Raylan," Boyd said, ignoring the twinges of hurt Raylan's statement had caused him and responding in a tone that conveyed both gentility and menace, "If you want to talk to me like some sort of dangerous criminal, then I'll respond like one. Consider this your only friendly warning: it might be advisable for your personal well-being to take a pass on this investigation. No point in getting embroiled in Harlan County business when you clearly have no intention of staying here longer than you have to."

Raylan looked him dead in the eye and asked, "Are you threatening a US Marshall, Boyd? I believe that's a federal offense."

"Of course not, Raylan," Boyd replied, his face wreathed once more in that dangerous smile, "Just a little friendly advice. After all, you've been away a long time. Things change."

"I'll keep it in mind," Raylan said with a hint of sarcasm. "The Marshall service will be needing your presence at noon tomorrow."

"And what, pray tell, is the occasion?" Boyd asked.

"Lineup. Got a witness who saw a man fire a bazooka into a church," Raylan said evenly, keeping his eyes on Boyd and his fingers resting ever so lightly on his sidearm. "I suppose I'll be seeing you then, Boyd." With that he turned and walked out the front door and down the drive to his car.

After a few moments, Boyd followed him onto the porch and called after him, "Oh count on it, Raylan Givens. You count on it."

Raylan had made it abundantly clear he intended to shut the door on their previous chapters together, Boyd mused as he returned to the house, but it was equally obvious that another, far more dangerous chapter was only just beginning.


End file.
